400 Years and Alive: Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in Contemporary Perspective

A conversation between Professors Jose Antonio Mazzotti and Sara Castro-Klaren about the work and legacy of Garcilaso’s thought.

2016 marks the 400 anniversary of the death of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the famed and influential author of the Royal Commentaries (Comentarios reales,​ 1609.) Garcilaso was the son of a Spanish conquistador and a noble woman from the Royal Inca Ayllu.

At about the age of twenty he left Cuzco and went to Spain in search of royal favors in recognition of his father’s role in the Spanish conquest of the Tahuantinsuyo. He lived in Spain for the rest of his life. He witnessed not only the age of European expansion but also the rise of Spanish letters in a period that would later be called the Golden Age of Spanish Literature. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega authored three books that today are considered classic and indispensable reading.

Professor Mazzotti (Tufts University) and Professor Castro-Klaren (Johns Hopkins University) discuss the work and legacy of Garcilaso’s thought from the perspectives of contemporary concerns such as migration, identities in flux, the transformation of the environment, indigenous rights and the creation of a single world for all humanity.